


Ripe for the Picking

by tisfan



Series: Open Ask Prompts [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Blueberries, M/M, Soulmates, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, no powers, plums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 01:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8778289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: geeniaz said: I finally found your blog! Ayee! (/°u°)/ Ok... I have a promp: WinterIron -> An alternate universe where people recognize their soul mate by the smell. Tony smells like plums and Bucky smells like cranberries... Maybe Post CivilWar? ... I dont know, that I leave to your consideration. Ps. I love your fics!!!! <3 Dear Geeniaz, I’m glad you love my fics, I have fun writing them. I changed Bucky’s scent in this from cranberries to blueberries because there’s a blueberry line from Tony in the Avengers where he offers blueberries to Bruce. (This line was completely unscripted and happened because Robert Downey Jr. was hiding food all over the sets because he was hungry…)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Geeniaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geeniaz/gifts).



 

“You’re just getting older, that’s all,” Dr. Cho said. “It happens to everyone who hasn’t found their mate.” 

Tony scowled. “Spirit bonding is stupid,” he said. “There are seven billion people on this planet. The idea that there’s only one for me is ridiculous. If I had a mate, they’re probably a seven year old Chinese boy.” 

“It’s not a direct one-to-one, Mr. Stark. I know you know that, you’ve read the files,” Cho said. “Admittedly, your preferences are rare, so of the percentage of the population with a match, only ten percent can bond at all, and of that, perhaps .002% are a differential match. That still leaves over a million people that could potentially fill the empty place in your heart.” 

“That’s so corny,” Tony said. “And I used to be able to, so long as I kept blueberries around. If I could smell them during, I didn’t have performance issues.” He’d actually had a woman who made scented candles for him; his dates would think they were romantic, the candle-lit sex, and Tony was able to get and maintain an erection, so long as the blueberry scent was in the room. It did make things like car sex and visiting someone else’s house… awkward. 

“As I said, you’re getting older,” Cho remarked. “Your spirit longs for a stronger connection, for love. Not just a weekend fling.” 

“My spirit wants to _get laid_ ,” Tony whined. “Isn’t there anything you can do?” 

“Go to a spirit festival,” she said. “Stop leaving it to chance, get out there.” 

“No. No, absolutely not. Everyone at those festivals are practically children. If my spirit match is a freaking seventeen year old kid, I don’t want them. That’s just sick.” And true; he knew if he actually met his mate, he’d be lost. It wouldn’t matter if it was a ten year old, he’d be stuck and smitten and unable to think of anyone else. And he was already forty without having met a single person who could even potentially match with him. The last thing he wanted to do, at his age, was fall in love with a teenager, who he couldn’t even marry for several years, and then know that he’d be leaving his mate alone in middle years when he died. 

Better to never find them than to curse someone to decades alone, spirit bond broken, half-alive. If the match never happened, they’d be lonely, not devastated. 

But he was a rare precious flower. Tony rolled his eyes; usually both halves of a spirit mating smelled the same; a lemon loved a lemon. Oranges mated with other oranges. Much simpler to find a mate; and for that matter, to have sex with someone who wasn’t your mate, if you carried your own pheromones around with you. 

But Tony smelled of plums, which meant he attracted other plums, but he just… _couldn’t_. It seemed weird and crawly and incestuous somehow. Like having sex with a second-cousin. Not technically illegal, but somehow still… icky. 

Cho shrugged. “That’s all I can suggest.” 

“I’d rather be celibate.” 

* * *

Turned out, he’d rather _not_ be celibate. 

Further turned out that the festivals sucked. They were crowded with teenagers and twenty-somethings. There was a lot of drinking, which Tony had given up because being celibate was awful enough without being a drunk on top of it. Boozing it up made him horny as hell and he’d managed exactly one partnered orgasm in the last eight months. The rest of the time it was his hand and his damn blueberry candles. 

Also, besides sucking, the festival stank. Reeked. Only one in ten people (some said it was more like one in seven, with the percentage increasing) were bondable in the first place, so Tony didn’t encounter many; usually not more than one or two in a day. Well, except for the bonded couples he knew; honestly, he had to fumigate his house whenever Steve and Sam came by, marinated as they were in the apple smell between them. (And it was worse because they both worked out regularly, so they sweat a lot. Pungent. The two of them were _pungent_. And if they were super, super cute and adorable, that only made it harder, sometimes, for Tony to be alone.)   

Tony was drowning in the scents; like an oversized fruit basket. Pineapple and mango, strawberries and limes, maple syrup? Okay, that woman just made him long for a huge stack of waffles. He was over stimulated. 

He’d caught a whiff of two blueberries; one of whom when he finally tracked the scent to the source had actually wrinkled her nose at Tony, as if he smelled bad. The other walked past him without even looking. Yeah, this was going well. 

The plums were out in force, too. One of the more annoying things about his stupid bond is that blueberries were rare, but plums were second-most-common. Lemons being first, which Tony always found weirdly ironic. (When life gives you lemons…) Which meant Tony had been nudged, flirted with, and at one point, backed into a corner and groped before he’d managed to get away. 

He was done, after that. There was no point being here. 

Tony strode by the wedding tent; there was always one set up at festivals. Eager spirits, having discovered a matching scent, were often wed that very day -- later they’d discover that they married a person as well as a pleasurable odor and divorces or separations were not unknow. Fewer than mundanes, but that might have been societal pressure, too. Bonded couples were _expected_ to stay together. 

“Oh, _god_ ,” someone said, deep and throaty. Tony rolled his eyes, glanced over. The wind was blowing in from the east, had carried his scent toward a man who was lingering behind the wedding tent. 

The man was, in a word, beautiful, with dark, messy-cut hair and piercing gray eyes. A dark shadow of beard cupped his cheeks and chin, just enough to scrape against skin with delicious friction. 

Tony held up his hand. “I know, I know,” he said, warding the guy off. “I have a particularly strong scent, I get that, I’ve been chased around the festival all day, and I’m really tired.”

“Never smelled anything like it,” the man said. “Look, can I… please. I been comin’ to these things for years, haven’t found anyone, an’... man, I haven’t had sex in _years_. Can I just… breathe near you, for a few minutes?” 

Tony shuddered. He… he didn’t want a goddamn plum; it was like sniffing his own shirt. The guy looked so desperate, though, and he was very, very pretty. Maybe just a minute wouldn’t hurt anything. “What’s your name?” 

“James Barnes,” the man said, “but most people call me Bucky.” 

“Tony,” Tony said, jerking his chin in a nod. “Look, I know what I smell like, but I’m not looking for a plum, I don’t match up with plums.” 

“You smell incredible,” Bucky said. “Like the king of plums. It’s so _strong_ , I just… I want to lick you, bite you, eat you up.” 

Tony shivered. Well, that was an evocative thought. If he thought he could get it up, he might actually go with this man, smell or no smell, but... “No biting,” Tony said. “I just want to go home.” The wind shifted and… Tony couldn’t smell anything. The man had no scent. How… how was that possible? Well, at least he couldn’t make Tony ill from the reek of more plums. “Okay, okay.” 

Bucky sighed in relief and pulled Tony into his arms, burying his nose in the crook of Tony’s neck. “God, that’s good,” he murmured. All the horrible tension in Bucky’s body bled out as he breathed in Tony’s scent. 

“You don’t… don’t have a scent? What are you, some sort of half-bond?” 

“I’m a level one,” Bucky said, his voice dark and needy against Tony’s throat. 

“I… thought they were all dead,” Tony said. Level ones had popped up in the 1940’s, the first of the spirit bonds… one in five hundred, maybe. 

“Most of us, yeah,” Bucky said. “I… I got a pod. Thought maybe, eventually, there’d be someone. But there was a malfunction and they woke me up.” 

“Ow,” Tony said. He’d heard about that; the great Winter experiment. Some two hundred or so of the Level ones had entered a sort of cryosleep. Their preferences were entered into a database, and when a match was found, they were awakened. Maybe thirty of them were left in cryo; either the matches had been found, or some of them had died in the long sleep. 

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. He drew back, slow and reluctant. “My time’s up. Thanks. I swear, you’re so strong, I can _taste_ it.” 

Tony opened his mouth to say something, then froze. From that close, kissing close, he could smell Bucky’s breath. 

“Wait,” Tony said, leaning even closer, his nostrils flaring, chasing just the tiniest hint of… 

Bucky licked his lips, his gaze flickering up to meet Tony’s, gray eyes wide and pupils blown. “You shouldn’t…” The wet shine of his mouth was an unholy temptation and Tony took one tiny step forward, trying to find… 

He didn’t, actually, mean to kiss the man. That would have been unkind to tease him when Tony wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- do anything else with him. But he was already so close and that scent, the faintest trace… he nudged Bucky’s mouth with his own, just a little nuzzle, a… 

Blueberry exploded against his lips, seeped in and coated his tongue. Tony inhaled in shock and his nostrils were filled with the scent, so strong, so potent, so… _wonderful_. 

Tony groaned, opened his mouth, god, god… “Kiss me, kiss me back,” Tony pleaded, leaning against Bucky, wanting, needing, and oh, god, he was hard, he hadn’t been in months and he needed. Bucky didn’t smell like blueberries; he _tasted_ of them. 

Bucky sighed, soft and eager. He didn’t surrender to Tony’s kiss, didn’t yield. He met Tony on the field as an equal, neither conquered nor capitulating. He took everything, gave everything. Tony had been kissed before, had done much more than kissing, but all of that was wiped away in the moment that Bucky’s sweet, brilliant, clever tongue swept inside his mouth. Tony was destroyed in that moment, everything he had been unmade until there was nothing left at all but his mate. His perfect match. 

Bucky panted for breath, shivering beside him. “Tony, Tony, Tony,” he murmured. “Is it… does it… it’s _everything_. You’re everything. Please, please tell me I’m not imagining this.” 

“If we’re dreaming,” Tony answered, “we’re doing it together.” 

“Never, ever wake up,” Bucky begged. “I can’t… I can’t go back to living without this.” 

There was a place in Tony’s body, just under his sternum, where he’d always felt hollow, cold. Empty. No longer. The taste of Bucky’s mouth had changed all that, changed it in an instant. “Let’s… get married. I’ll take you home.” 

Bucky pressed his hand over that spot where Tony had been shattered and alone. “I am home. Here, in your arms.”


End file.
